


Ataashi

by laurpas



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Avvar, Avvar Inquisitor (Dragon Age), F/M, Pre-Relationship, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29460279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurpas/pseuds/laurpas
Summary: The Iron Bull learns something about the mysterious new Herald of Andraste.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Iron Bull, Inquisitor/The Iron Bull (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 11





	Ataashi

**Author's Note:**

> I've been toying around with the idea of an Avvar Inquisitor and this is my first foray into that. I hope to make this a series with at least one other work simmering in the back of my brain. (No promises on when it'll be done though.) Please enjoy!

The clouds overhead had been quietly promising a storm for hours but with one glorious clap of lightning they made clear that they were no longer in the mood to warn. A heartbeat or two later thunder grumbled ominously and Bull watched as more than one person in the group shivered at the sudden electricity in the air.  
“We have minutes, if that,” Lowenna, the woman known as the Herald of Andraste, said quietly. Slowly she looked over the elevated path, her dark eyes solemn and considering. After a moment she spoke again, “And so Korth provides. There is a cave, up to the right. It will shelter us through the storm.”  
She began moving, steps measured and near silent. Bull and the others followed behind her, whether from duty or simply desiring to escape the imminent rain. Although they were all strangers to each other, all of them still more than a little suspicious, they at least trusted Lowenna to guide them to someplace warm and dry. Many had decried her as just an Avvari barbarian but Bull would have been hard pressed to choose someone else to guide them through the Ferelden wilderness.  
Though the mouth of the cave was short he was relieved to see that it opened up considerably once they pressed farther in. In front of him Lowenna conjured fire in her palm and then held it aloft, beginning to walk the perimeter of the cave. So quiet, so reserved, but without any trace of fear. Bull suspected that there was _something_ underneath the stoic exterior but wasn’t sure that it was the right time to start picking away at it.  
“Well,” Cassandra said, since it was clear that Lowenna was not going to say anything, “This is a good enough place to stay, perhaps for the night.” Bull watched as the Seeker eyed the flame warily and then turned her attention back to the Herald. “Perhaps we could even have a fire. The smoke should be able to exit easily out of the cave entrance.”  
Lowenna lowered her hand but the small, flickering ball of fire remained at her shoulder, gently bobbing and following her around as she began to unpack her belongings. At the base of the pack she had tied a small bundle of wood and now removed these, silently and efficiently building a fire on the floor.  
Cassandra watched her for a moment, before her eyes flicked to Solas, then to Bull, and then back down at her own pack. So it would be like that then- Well, Bull was fine with silences, even mildly awkward ones. And while the mood would have greatly been improved by the addition of Varric or even Sera, he couldn’t complain much when he was warm and dry.  
He watched as Lowenna finished aligning the wood just so and then, bending over slightly, she whispered something so quietly he doubted even Cassandra standing next to her could hear it. The small orb of fire at her shoulder bounced up slightly and then, dutifully, meandered over to the wood and caught it alight. Lowenna sat back and for just a moment, so fast he might have missed it, he saw the line of her mouth curve up into a smile.  
Outside lightning clapped again and before anyone could recover the sky opened up and began to dump out torrential streams of water. The smile disappeared, but the memory of it lingered on.

They ate quietly and then all scattered to their private tasks. Solas was boredly perusing through a book of magic although occasionally a look of disgust and then annoyance would pass over his face. Cassandra was reading through field reports, her brow deeply furrowed. Occasionally she would write something, the loud scratch of the pen nib a pleasant compliment to the occasional pop and hiss of the fire as steam escaped the logs.  
Bull was supposed to be reading his own reports but had instead been observing his companions. Now his eye strayed to where the Herald sat at the mouth of the cave, cross-legged and intently watching the sky. She’d been like that for a solid hour, maybe longer, and he was a little surprised that she hadn’t moved back just a little. He could just barely see from his vantage point a fine mist of water on her face, the short hairs at the edge of her temples curling up from the humidity.  
He knew very little about the Avvar, though he’d done his best to learn what he could. But it was difficult to study a people whose traditions were passed down orally, who were wary of outsiders and who were so often misunderstood and maligned by other cultures. He’d heard more than one person refer to her as a barbarian, an unwashed savage, and he could not help but feel a pang of solidarity. She had been nothing but courteous, was clearly thoughtful and intelligent, but still many of the others looked down on her or underestimated her.  
If she found any of this maddening, as she had every right to, she didn’t betray it. At least he was able to get out some of his frustration by cutting people in half with his battleaxe, or seducing Chantry sisters. She… Well, she did spend an awful lot of time setting bandits on fire. And perhaps, when no one was looking, she was seducing Chantry sisters too.  
Suddenly she turned her head, her large, dark eyes boring straight into Bull’s. For a moment his breath caught and then, knowing that he’d already been caught, he continued to look at her. She seemed neither offended nor intrigued by his attention. Likely she was used to being stared at and Bull felt a sudden pang of guilt. Her eyes skittered away just as his did, but instead of turning back to the storm she twisted her body further to try and face Cassandra.  
“I am going to go out for a little bit. I will be back in due time.”  
This earned her the startled attention of all of her companions. The rain, instead of lightening up, seemed to have only worsened and as if to emphasize the strangeness of her announcement more thunder rumbled overhead.  
“Uh, Herald…” For a moment even Cassandra was too caught off-guard to say anything.  
“Whatever it is can be dealt with in the morning,” Solas said, though he rarely involved himself in things like this.  
“No, it cannot,” Lowenna said as she began to tug her boots off, further increasing her companion’s distress and confusion. For a moment she stopped, looking back up at them and then said, “The rain will be gone by then.”  
She obviously thought that she had explained herself sufficiently to them. For a woman who had started out monosyllabic this was, actually, some form of progress.  
“Herald, with all due respect, we cannot let you just… Leave in the middle of a storm. Consider the danger-”  
“I will be fine, although I thank you for your concern.” She was now barefoot and was removing the staff from her back, along with her thick outer layers. Finally she rose to her full height, appearing pitifully underdressed and just a little mad. “Do not follow me,” she said, “I promise I will be fine.” After a long moment of her and her companions exchanging looks she forced a smile to her lips as if to inspire confidence. But it was nothing like the one before, the small, secret one he had seen.

“One of us needs to go after her,” Cassandra declared, arms crossed. She hadn’t sat down since Lowenna had departed, her reports forgotten on the floor next to her blankets.  
“This may be some Avvar ritual,” Solas said, “The gods the Avvar worship are much more closely tied to the natural world.”  
“Nevertheless, it is dangerous out there. She could happen across some bandits, Templars, apostates, bears…”  
“All of which she would be more than capable of handling. Your Herald is a formidable battle mage.”  
Cassandra’s frown grew even deeper, if it were possible.  
“She could slip on a patch of mud, fall and hit her head. She could be out there, bleeding half to death, while we all stay in here dry and warm.”  
“...And now you sound like someone’s very concerned mother.” Solas was clearly amused but Bull could see that Cassandra was just one more mocking comment from going over the edge.  
“I’ll go,” he said, though he would have rather given Lowenna her privacy. She seemed to have so little of it, now that she was who she was. “I’ll make sure that nothing bad has happened to her.”  
Both Solas and Cassandra turned to stare at him, at his bulk, his big horns, and Bull had to resist the urge to curve his shoulders to appear smaller.  
“I’m a spy,” he said cheerfully, “I can be stealthy when I need to be.”  
Cassandra pursed her lips for a moment before finally sighing and waving him off.  
“Fine. And I suppose if she needs to be dragged back to camp you are the most suitable person to do it.”  
Bull twitched a little, not appreciating the comparison to a pack animal, or whatever it was Cassandra was trying to say. He told himself that he was doing this less for Cassandra’s comfort and more because if he went looking for Lowenna there was a good chance he could find her, assure her safety, and then leave before any harm was done. Solas and Cassandra on the other hand...  
“I’ll be back.” He said, rising to his feet. He strapped his axe to his back but left his pack behind. If she really was hurt it would be better to get her back to the cave than try to take care of her in the dark and rain.  
Approaching the mouth of the cave he looked out into the gloom, listening to the sound of rain tapping against the trees and ground. It would have been wonderful to fall asleep to, dry and comfortable in his bed roll, maybe with a little whiskey in his belly.  
Well, he thought, so much for that. And then he stepped out into the storm.

He watched her as she danced in the rain, arms splayed open and legs loping through the wet grass of the small field. Above her thunder rumbled and she threw back her head and laughed, rejoicing in the dark power of the sound.  
Her hair hung down in dark, heavy clumps, rain water meeting her skin and then melting down. It was almost a little too cool to be comfortable but he wasn’t convinced that she noticed it.  
Thunder warned overhead again and, as if in response to her lackadaisical attitude, unleashed a whip crack of lightning. She grinned and then he watched as she stopped and opened her arms, calling to life two identical arcs of lightning in her hands and sending them back into the sky.  
He inhaled slowly, feeling something unfurl inside of him that was neither terror nor desire but seemed to brush up against them. It was, he realized, the same feeling he experienced whenever he saw a dragon.  
_Awe_. He was in awe of her.  
The sky cracked open in a brilliant display and she howled back, her mouth open and laughing as she began to move again.  
Around him wind whipped the trees, whistling through them and battering at their branches. With the thunder it made an almost overwhelming cacophony of noise but she reveled in it, seeming almost to sing with it.  
He thought of dragons, and he wondered if they too found such joy in the flex of their muscles, the mighty flap of their wings as they took to the sky. He wondered if they too roared, not in warning but in song, for the sheer ecstasy of being alive and dangerous, at one with the world around them.  
For a moment the sound of her laughter cut through the rest of the noise and he watched as she huffed out a breath, falling to the ground below her. Her chest heaved in exertion but her eyes were wide and shining with happiness and he suddenly felt a sharp pang of guilt for intruding upon her moment of wild abandon.  
Soon, he knew, she would grow cold and decide to come back to camp. And so he turned and began to leave, hoping that she would remain ignorant to being seen. He thought of his earlier assessment, that despite her apparent coldness there was more to her beneath the surface.  
And then he thought of her smile when she had lit the fire. The sweet little curl at the corner of her mouth. The shining of her dark eyes. In his imagination those eyes now looked up at him and that smile widened and it laughed, full of joy, and he wondered if a man could not have other reasons for wanting to make a woman laugh other than to sleep with her or steal her secrets.  
It seemed, in that moment, distinctly possible.


End file.
